“I’ve heard things that aren’t true” – Corriere.it

«Over five hundred people!» reads the message on WhatsApp that Marta Fascina was waiting for with some impatience the day before yesterday when, inside the Arcore villa where the atmosphere and the movements of mourning for the disappearance of the landlord struggle to give way to the rhythms of everyday life, he had begun to become familiar with a new situation, yes, but objectively predictable.

Because he expected it, the companion of Silvio Berlusconi, who with the disappearance of the former prime minister would have begun a new chapter for her, even within Forza Italia; perhaps, to put it in the words entrusted to one of the very few with whom you speak practically every day, “I didn’t expect untrue things to be said so soon”, such as the elusive request for eviction from Villa San Martino (“It is obvious that he is and will still be there”, say his friends), such as the reconstructions of the fluctuating relationship with Antonio Tajani (“We have an excellent relationship and we have never argued”, she says), finally to the doubts raised on the evolution of the closeness with Silvio Berlusconi’s children, with whom the bond is closer than ever, starting with Marina.

Read that message after seeing the phone display light up, the other day, snatched her first smile after two weeks. The “over five hundred people!” they were referring to the audience of the Lombardy regional assembly of Forza Italia in Sesto San Giovanni, the first convened by the new coordinator Alessandro Sorte after the death of the Knight, considered «a participation, as well as numerically above all expectations, full of enthusiasm and desire to start again». It seems like a detail, in the daily news of a party that has begun its long march beyond Berlusconi, which will culminate in the celebration of a national congress in 2024; it is not, given that for Fascina and the “Fascina group” – as the group of boys close to Berlusconi’s partner had been renamed, who had climbed the peaks of the party since the first months of 2024 – it is the point that marks the start of a sort of counter-offensive.

Yeah, why Fascina seems to have no intention
to retire to private life and close the chapter of his life which coincided with the adventure in Forza Italia, which he has followed as a militant since he was a minor. Conversely, if there are cards to be played on the tables of the next stages that mark the party calendar, he intends to play them all. It is enough to hear a passage from Sorte’s report to the regional assembly, which seemed to be a response to the attacks of the wing of Licia Ronzulli and Alessandro Cattaneo, who were absent the other night: «Now we’re here. So, I who have the responsibility of covering the most important role in Lombardy, the coordinator, what can I do? Can I play this role by naming friends of friends? No, we have to give ourselves some criteria. And the main one I recognize is the criterion of the territory, that of merit, that of those who have votes».

Throwing down the glove in defiance is perhaps too much, given the reluctance of the character in the proscenium. But when he says “I am and remain in Forza Italia”, probably Fascina does not say it just to say. The area, if one could speak of an area, is anything but in retreat. The line – support for Tajani in the party and for the Meloni government in the Palazzo – is fixed. The next charge of controversy is probably expected on the day of the opening of Berlusconi’s will. As one of her friends says, “however it goes, they will say that you have had too much or too little, and in any case not the right”.

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